International Buskers Festival moves to Kamloops

Victoria’s loss in the Southern Interior’s gain as one of Vancouver Island’s biggest summer festivals is moving to Kamloops.

The Victoria International Buskers Festival is departing the B.C. Capital, with no festival in 2017, and re-emerging as the Kamloops International Buskers Festival for the 2018 summer festival season.

“While I am sad to see Victoria lose such a great family-oriented event, I am happy at the same time that the International Buskers Festival will live on and put lots of smiles on faces of British Columbians and visitors alike”, said John Vickers, former executive director of the Buskers Society.

Vickers said that despite their best efforts, complications within the greater Victoria area made it impossible to continue to operate in the B.C. capital.

“One of the issues with International Buskers, with its large family following, is that being able to accommodate the volume of visitors can be challenging. We subsequently expanded our relocation search across the Island and then opened the opportunity up to municipalities across the province. Once we did that, we had several municipalities vying for the festival and ultimately the municipality of Kamloops was given the nod for 2018.”

Vickers added that he expects Kamloops officials to announce the 2018 dates and other details later in the year.

To keep the busker celebration alive in Victoria, the Downtown Victoria Business Association announced the innaugual Downtown Victoria Buskers Festival in November 2016. The six-day festival is set to be held from July 11 to 16, 2017 with stages throughout downtown Victoria.